LlabTooFeR corroborates sketchy rumors of two new HTC-made Nexus devices

LlabTooFeR on Twitter, an account known for reliably leaking many HTC handset details, has come out to give a little smidgen of confirmation to the super-sketchy rumors we saw about HTC-made Nexus devices earlier this week. While it’s not surprising for HTC to be making some Nexus devices in one sense (they were Google’s first Nexus partner, after all), it’s interesting considering Google’s new buddy-buddy relationship with Huawei…

According to the previous sketchy rumors, HTC is making two phones. One of the devices it set to have a 5-inch screen, while the other purportedly packs a 5.5-inch screen. Interestingly, these two sizes are both smaller than the larger of the two 2015 Nexus phones; the Nexus 5X has a 5.2-inch panel, and the Nexus 6P has a 5.7-inch screen. And the 5.5-inch phone, if it’s indeed the size of the larger Nexus phone this time around, is an entire .5-inch smaller than the screen on the Nexus 6.

An interesting thing to note here is that HTC as a company is simply flailing. The company’s revenue fell 35% in 2015, its calendar year ended with bad holiday sales, and its latest phone, the HTC One A9, is not exactly going to save the business. Meanwhile, the company has an unpredictable future in the VR space, where it’s pushing its Vive headset. Recent rumors speculated that HTC was planning to spin off the VR unit, but the company has since formally denied those claims.

The new tweet doesn’t really confirm much about the device’s themselves, but it does give us a couple of codenames, giving credence to what was previously an unsubstantiated claim by a Weibo user. According to LlabTooFeR, the phones (if that’s what they turn out to be) will be codenamed T50 and T55. This year might be the first year that we see 3 or more Nexus handsets, though, because I would bet we’ll be seeing something from the hands of Huawei, Google’s new best friend and maker of the Nexus 6P.

Allegedly related to HTC Nexus devices codenames are:
T50
T55

— LlabTooFeR (@LlabTooFeR) January 19, 2016